binu-raj@in.

com

Human Rights and Marginalised: An analysis*

Binu Raj

“We must try to proceed with the analysis of ourselves as beings who are historically determined, to a certain extent, by the
Enlightenment. Such an analysis implies a series of historical inquiries that are as precise as possible; and these inquiries will
not be oriented retrospectively towards the ‘essential kernel of rationality’ that can be found in the Enlightenment and that would
have to be preserved in any event; they well be oriented towards the ‘contemporary limits of the necessary,’ that is, towards what
is no longer indispensible for the constitution of ourselves as an autonomous subjects.”

—Michel Foucault

Coinages/concerns over humanism, marginalisation, national, global and other likes are all made
into effect only with the consensus of modernity. Throughout its long history, modernity, in all
its guises, has been characterized by the tension between impulses which were critical or
sceptical-destructive or negative impulses-and other impulses which were more positive,
affirmative-impulses of hope and longing.1 It is to be noted that the philosophical discourse of
modernity has continued down to the present and has various defining moments for it.
Modernism here is as much an antidote to modernity as it is to its party-programme. Various
consensus over ‘Human Rights and Marginalised’ at ‘popular’ domain can be better understood
from the impulses unleashed by modernity; ‘materialised’ from the various defining moments of
modernity.

Ideas emanated from the notion/usage ‘Human Rights and Marginalised’ has its historical
bearing, and one may observe that in this process it has certain reflective relation to the present.
Both the ‘historicity’ of the notions in its formation and its reflexive relation to the present is to
certain extent the context of present analysis. The present paper in this respect tries to critically
analyse the episteme that enable the subject to identify various concepts and concerns like that of
Human Rights, marginalisation, so on.

*The paper was presented in the UGC sponsored national seminar on “State, Human Rights and The Marginalised”,13 to 15th
August 2010, SSV College, Valayanchirangara, state of Kerala, India.
1
Lloyd Spencer, “Postmodernism, Modernity, and The Tradition of Dissent”, in Stuart Sim(ed), The Routledge Companion To
Postmodernism, Routledge, London, 2001.p.161.
 binu-raj@in.com

It is difficult to summarise various context from which claims for human rights at present are
made. Human rights claims vary from power abuse of state authority to those opposing certain
individuals or groups, from the demand for universal entailment of various rights to the claims
made by state/states on behalf of the citizens of other state/states. These and similar modern
human rights claim has a sort of antecedents in the moral obligations and duties that existed
before the complex historical event or set of events called Enlightenment. This is not to suggest
that modern Human Rights are direct inherited from medieval milieu. This is only to suggest that
the context of claims made in the Bill of Rights in England (1688), the declaration of
independence by the thirteen American colonies (1776), the Declaration of the Rights of the man
and the citizen in France (1789) and other precedents like the English Magna Carta (1215) and
Fueo Viejo de Castilla, in Spain (1394) was that of “natural rights” entailed to certain extent
from the “natural law” doctrine of Greek Stoicism.2 It was the regime of nation-state and
nationalism of 18 century Europe that endorsed fundamental units/unity of European society
towards certain ‘needful’ reforms that finally paved way for concerns centring Human Rights.
Further modernity strengthened this Human by enabling him to undertake various self analytical
counts. The Epistemological background of the age enabled wo/men certain anthropocentric
interpretations which later developed into various knowledge systems concerning the social life
of human being. The urge was also emanated from the needs of the modern nation-state for more
exact knowledge to base its decisions in the changing ethos. So during the course of 19 century
diverse set of names of “subject matters” or “disciplines” were formulated. However, by the First
World War, there was general convergence or consensus around a few specific names, which
were primarily five: history, economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology.3 Modern
wo/man poised his/her new identity from these changing contexts of epistemological traits. The
process involved the internalisation of nature to various subjective positions so as to reveal
his/her discursive secretes. This making of modern identity is said to be “an achievement, an
ensemble of ... understandings of what it is to be a human agent: the senses of inwardness,

2
Gustavo Esteva & Madhu Suri Prakash, Grassroots Post-Modernism, Zed Books, London, 1998, pp.128ff.
3
Imanuel Wallerstein, Open The Social Sciences, Sage exclusive,1996 p.14
 binu-raj@in.com

freedom, individuality ... at home in the modern West”.4 Concomitant to this modern nation-
states evolved to a status from which they claimed both political and economic unity/units.5
Wo/man’s relation with Nature was also in flux.
The world-making of Man had distinguished human beings from non-humans. Man and Nature
were distinguished, but not put to extreme separation. With such separation, rational Man
welcomed the birth of Individual Man and attempted to bade farewell to Nature/god/past------------
--------------- ----------- Notions like ‘Progress’, ‘Industry’, ‘Wealth’, ‘Production’, ‘Labour’ etc.
Were some of the universal jargons which gained material repeatability in the discourse of
development by the turn of the 19th century itself.6

Within all these historical clothing wo/man were endorsing their human condition to that of
Homo economics. Thus envisaged human condition has its ontological backings. For instance
economists argument that economic behaviour was the reflection of the universal individualist
psychology rather than of socially constructed institution7 finding its due appreciation in the
modern society were social orders are more exposed to modern market.8 The Homo economics
assumption was premised on the notion of ‘the law of scarcity and choice’, that human wants are
great, not to say infinite, whereas human means are limited, though improvable implying choice
over the allocation of means (resources).

4
Charles Taylor, Sources of the self. The making of modern identity, Harvard University Press, 1989.p.ix.
5
Right up to the time of the Commercial Revolution what may appear to us as national trade was not national, but municipal... ....
....... ...... So-called nations were merely political units, and very loose ones at that, consisting economically of innumerable
smaller and bigger self-sufficing households and insignificant local markets in the villages. See Karl Polanyi, The Great
Transformation, Beacop press, United States of America, 1957, p.63.
6
Raju S, “Developmental Modernity: Man and Nature in the Discourse of Wealth and Labour”, Journal of Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library, Vol.2 No.1 (January-March 2003) p.p46-47.
7
Imanuel Wallerstein, Open The Social..., Op.cit., p.17.
8
However, the neo-classical claims for such universal human behaviour and its concomitant view that the transformation of
isolated markets into a market economy, regulated markets into a self-regulating market as natural outcome of the spreading of
markets are criticised. Some of the studies have addressed the vitality of socially instituted distribution mechanism from a
historical perspective countering the economic meaning as circulated by the neo-classical economist. Works of Marshall Sahlins
and Karl Polanyi are worth to be noted in this respect.
Observations are made about the methodological individualism and rational choice analysis of orthodox economics by which a
general encroachment is made by them into the social sciences. The tendency led by Hirshleifer, Grossman and other associates
began to proliferate rapidly since 1990. In this respect it would be interesting to note one of their expressions “As we come to
explore this continent, economists will encounter a number of native tribes – historians, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers,
etc. – who, in their various intellectually primitive ways, have preceded us in reconnoitring the dark side of human activity. Once
we economists get involved, quite properly we’ll of course be brushing aside these a-theoretical aborigines”. The footnote to this
quote explains: “When these researchers do good work, they’re doing economics!” for details regarding this see Jack Hirshleifer,
“The Dark Side of the Force”, Economic Inquiry, 1994 Vol.XXXII.
 binu-raj@in.com

The founding fathers of [this] economics saw in scarcity the keystone for their theoretical
constructions. They postulated it as a universal condition of human society, with axiomatic value.
Economists have even been able to transform their finding into a popular prejudice, a self-evident
truism for everyone."Common sense" is now so immersed in the notions of economic "rationality"
that it is very difficult to recognize the economists' premise of "scarcity" or "rationality" as mere
leftovers of modern science; words which, like others, fell into ordinary language and perception,
and colonized them. Scarcity connotes shortage, rarity, restriction, want, insufficiency, even
frugality. Since all these connotations (alluding to conditions appearing everywhere and at all
times) are now mixed up with the economic denotations of the word, the popular prejudice about
the universality of economics, with its premise of scarcity, is constantly reinforced.9(Emphasis
added).

It is from these above mentioned self empowered subjective position that wo/man in their
making were able to determine/demand various ‘rights’ variously grouped as ‘Human Rights’.

II
Rightness of Rights

“The postmodern would be that which, in the modern, puts forward the unpresentable in presentation itself; that which denies
itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of a taste which would make it possible to share collectively the nostalgia for the
unattainable; that which searches for new presentations, not in order to enjoy them but in order to impart a stronger sense of the
unpresentable”

— Jean-Frangois Lyotard

We will start the discussion with Akira Kurasova’s movie ‘Derzu Uzala’ (1975). The movie
revolves round on the relationship between a Russian military Captain Vladimer Arseniev and
Derzu (a man from goldi tribe who addresses himself as a hunter). The captain along with his
platoon is on an expedition so as to accomplish a topographic survey of uncharted Siberian
frontier is guided by Derzu. On many occasions the life of the captain is saved by Derzu. The
captain owes great respect and love to Derzu for many reasons. Durzu accidently on an occasion
violates his tribe’s taboo by shooting a tiger. It is believed that ‘Kanga’ the forest spirit will send
another tiger in vengeance. Derzu from that point becomes much disturbed and frustrated. Derzu
finally decides to accept an offer that once captain extended; to live together with captain and his
family in town. In the captain’s house/family Derzu is provided with all sorts of modern
comforts. But we find Derzu struggling to understand the terms of townlife.

9
Gustavo Esteva & Madhu Suri Prakash, Grassroots Post-Modernism..., Op.cit., p.131.However, it is to be noted that choice
does not presuppose ‘scarce’ resources. Moral choice (between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘evil’) as well as crossroads
(which way to choose) does not presuppose scarce means.
 binu-raj@in.com

Let me illustrate a conversation in this respect from the film.10

Captain: Well, how are you Derzu?
Derzu: Sit I here, just like duck. How can men sit in box?
Captain: It isn’t a very nice room, we’ll have to change the wallpaper..........make everything
more cozy. Mean while, what if you live in my study.
Derzu: Don’t bother, Captain I pitch tend outdoors. Sleep. I don’t disturbed any one.
Captain: See Derzu...... it’s not allowed in a city.
Derzu: Why not, bad!
Captain: How should I explain? That’s a rule.
Derzu: A rule. Shoot a gun I can’t. Sleep outdoor I can’t. I not get enough air at all.

Here the law of scarcity and choice we discussed earlier does not allude to Derzu’s comments. It
has more than to do with the ‘privileged know and other need to learn’ position in which act of
knowing by the privileged is performed with the aid of modern subjectivity.11 To give space to
Derzu’s “I not get enough air at all” we must presuppose not a modern universe but understand a
pluriverse. A pluriverse entails cultures as incommensurate. Pluriverse thus never presupposes
any supra-cultural criterion for establishing the fundamental difference of cultures.12 As by this
perception we may see that there is something cultural even about the air which Derzu breaths.
Thus one can attribute something cultural to thinking, acting, living, dying and all other aspects
of life in a pluriverse.

10
Dialogues presented are in accordance with the English subtitle.
11
Here the usage “privileged know and other need to learn” can be associated to Gustavo Esteva & Madhu Suri Prakash’s concept
of “social minority”. The “social minorities” are those groups in both the North and the South that share homogeneous ways of
modern (western) life all over the world. Usually, they adopt as their own the basic paradignis of modernity. They are also
usually classified as the upper classes of every society and are immersed in economic society: the so-called “formal sector”. In
using the categories, Gustavo Esteva & Madhu Suri Prakash are not succumbing to the modern statistical reduction of people,
qualifying or disqualifying them only by their numbers. At the same time, however, they are differentiating between groups of
people by the "quality" of their living conditions, which usually determine their mode of thinking and their behavior and that can
be associated with the One-third World (the “social minorities” in both North and South).
I borrow Jean-Frangois Lyotard understanding of the term modern to the current context. Lyotard use the term modern to
designate any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse of this kind making an explicit appeal to some
grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject,
or the creation of wealth.” see Jean-Frangois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, University of
Minnesota Press, United States of America, 1984, p. xxiii.

12
Gustavo Esteva & Madhu Suri Prakash, Grassroots Post-Modernism..., Op.cit., p.133ff.
 binu-raj@in.com

At this juncture it seems worth to ask certain questions about human rights and marginalised per
se, which human, who’s human, who’s human rights, for what and finally who determines so
called marginalised?
Here one can easily infer that any attempt to postulate the universality of human rights and
enforce its promotion is nothing less than the theoretical and practical attempt to dominate the
majority of people on earth from the standpoint of ‘privileged know and other need to learn’.
Here it is to be noted that the predominant knowledge system of the mentioned privileged has no
assess or even equalents to the various cultural connotations of the pluriverse. For instance, how
can a universal human right propaganda address various cultural connotations like that of aadar,
samman, shradha, izath, hak so on that persist in some parts of the geographical terrain now
identified as India.
I can also give you a paradoxical situation to the claims made by human rights activists against
the ‘culling out’ of pre born female babies.13
The traditional women of countries like China and India are ‘educated’ by their liberated sisters
to believe that they have rights over their reproductive organs, owned by their (individual)
selves. They are also similarly ‘educated’ to claim the use of sonograms and other modern
medical technologies as their rights. Since their liberators do not stay long enough to change the
entire social context of the sisters being ‘conscientized,’ traditional Indian and Chinese women
are practicing their modern morality of rights to abort their unborn daughters. Defenders of
women's rights are outraged by the 100 million missing women culled out of the uterus before
birth. Why do they pass off the deaths of these unborn girls to the feudal minds of males in these
cultures? Why do they fail to perceive close connections between the 100 million missing
women and the introduction of foreign technologies and alien concepts of rights and freedoms
in non-modern cultures?
In a critical reflection on the way in which the discourse of human rights has come to dominate
has become in itself a variant of cultural imperialism in a pluriverse. It is within the various
domains of knowledge systems of ‘privileged know and other need to learn’ that marginalisation
is materialised, and paradoxically it is to be noted that the ‘care’ for the identified marginalised
are also provided from the logic of the same agency or at one or other defining moment of
modernity.

13
Situation sited is borrowed from Ibid.,127.
 binu-raj@in.com

References:

Boundas ,Constantin V. (ed) .2007. The Edinburgh Companion to 20th c Philosophy, Landon:
Edinburgh university press.

Esteva, Gustavo& Prakash,Suri .Madhu.1998, Grassroots Post-Modernism, London: Zed Books.

Hirshleifer, Jack. 1994. ‘The Dark Side of the Force’ in Economic Inquiry, Vol.XXXII.

Lyotard, Frangois. Jean. 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, United
States of America: University of Minnesota.

Ozkirimli, Umut. 2000. Theories of nationalism a critical introduction, London:Macmillan

press.

Polanyi, Karl. 1957. The Great Transformation, United States of America: Beacop press.

Rabinow, Paul. 1984. Foucault reader. New York: Pantheon books.

S, Raju. (January-March 2003). ‘Developmental Modernity: Man and Nature in the Discourse of
Wealth and Labour’ in Journal of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Vol.2 No.1.

Sim, Stuart (ed).2001.The Routledge Companion To Postmodernism, London: Routledge.

Taylor, Charles. 1989. Sources of the self. The making of modern identity, Harvard University
Press.

*******************************